The lady in the opposite berth was German, and so was the lady in the
berth above her. Their husbands were American, but that didn't make them
less German. Nothing ever makes a German less German, Anna-Rose
explained to Anna-Felicitas.
"Except," replied Anna-Felicitas, "a judicious dilution of their blood
by the right kind of mother."
"Yes," said Anna-Rose. "Only to be found in England."
This conversation didn't take place till the afternoon of the next day,
by which time Anna-Felicitas already knew about the human freight being
Germans, for one of their own submarines came after the _St. Luke_ and
no one was quite so loud in expression of terror and dislike as the two
Germans.
They demanded to be saved first, on the ground that they were Germans.
They repudiated their husbands, and said marriage was nothing compared
to how one had been born. The curtains of their berths, till then so
carefully closed, suddenly yawned open, and the berths gave up their
contents just as if, Anna-Felicitas remarked afterwards to Anna-Rose, it
was the resurrection and the berths were riven sepulchres chucking up
their dead.
This happened at ten o'clock the next morning when the _St. Luke_ was
pitching about off the southwest coast of Ireland. The twins, waking
about seven, found with a pained surprise that they were not where they
had been dreaming they were, in the sunlit garden at home playing
tennis happily if a little violently, but in a chilly yet stuffy place
that kept on tilting itself upside down. They lay listening to the
groans coming from the opposite berths, and uneasily wondering how long
it would be before they too began to groan. Anna-Rose raised her head
once with the intention of asking if she could help at all, but dropped
it back again on to the pillow and shut her eyes tight and lay as quiet
as the ship would let her. Anna-Felicitas didn't even raise her head,
she felt so very uncomfortable.
At eight o'clock the stewardess looked in--the same stewardess, they
languidly noted, with whom already they had had two encounters, for it
happened that this was one of the cabins she attended to--and said that
if anybody wanted breakfast they had better be quick or it would be
over.
"Breakfast!" cried the top berth opposite in a heart-rending tone; and
instantly was sick.
The stewardess withdrew her head and banged the door to, and the twins,
in their uneasy berths, carefully keeping their eyes shut so as not to
witness the behaviour of the sides and ceiling of the cabin, feebly
marvelled at the stewardess for suggesting being quick to persons who
were being constantly stood on their heads. And breakfast,--they
shuddered and thought of other things; of fresh, sweet air, and of the
scent of pinks and apricots warm with the sun.
At ten o'clock the stewardess came in again, this time right in, and
with determination in every gesture.
"Come, come," she said, addressing the twins, and through them talking
at the heaving and groaning occupants of the other side, "you mustn't
give way like this. What you want is to be out of bed. You must get up
and go on deck. And how's the cabin to get done if you stay in it all
the time?"
Anna-Felicitas, the one particularly addressed, because she was more on
the right level for conversation than Anna-Rose, who could only see the
stewardess's apron, turned her head away and murmured that she didn't
care.
"Come, come," said the stewardess. "Besides, there's life-boat drill at
mid-day, and you've got to be present."
Anna-Felicitas, her eyes shut, again murmured that she didn't care.
"Come, come," said the stewardess. "Orders are orders. Every soul on the
ship, sick or not, has got to be present at life-boat drill."
"Oh, I'm not a soul," murmured Anna-Felicitas, who felt at that moment
how particularly she was a body, while the opposite berths redoubled
their groans.
"Come, come--" said the stewardess.
Then the _St. Luke_ whistled five times, and the stewardess turned pale.
For a brief space, before they understood what had happened, the twins
supposed she was going to be sick. But it wasn't that that was the
matter with her, for after a moment's staring at nothing with horror on
her face she pounced on them and pulled them bodily out of their berths,
regardless by which end, and threw them on the floor anyhow. Then she
plunged about and produced life-jackets; then she rushed down the
passage flinging open the doors of the other cabins; then she whirled
back again and tried to tie the twins into their life-jackets, but with
hands that shook so that the strings immediately came undone again; and
all the time she was calling out "Quick--quick--quick--" There was a
great tramping of feet on deck and cries and shouting.
The curtains of the opposite berths yawned asunder and out came the
Germans, astonishingly cured of their sea-sickness, and struggled
vigorously into their life-jackets and then into fur coats, and had the
fur coats instantly pulled off again by a very energetic steward who ran
in and said fur coats in the water were death-traps,--a steward so much
bent on saving people that he began to pull off the other things the
German ladies had on as well, saying while he pulled, disregarding their
protests, that in the water Mother Nature was the best. "Mother
Nature--Mother Nature," said the steward, pulling; and he was only
stopped just in the nick of time by the stewardess rushing in again and
seeing what was happening to the helpless Germans.
Anna-Rose, even at that moment explanatory, pointed out to
Anna-Felicitas, who had already grasped the fact, that no doubt there
was a submarine somewhere about. The German ladies, seizing their
valuables from beneath their pillows, in spite of the steward assuring
them they wouldn't want them in the water, demanded to be taken up and
somehow signalled to the submarine, which would never dare do anything
to a ship containing its own flesh and blood--and an American ship,
too--there must be some awful mistake--but anyhow they must be
saved--there would be terrible trouble, that they could assure the
steward and the twins and the scurrying passers-by down the passage, if
America allowed two Germans to be destroyed--and anyhow they would
insist on having their passage money refunded....
The German ladies departed down the passage, very incoherent and very
unhappy but no longer sick, and Anna-Felicitas, clinging to the edge of
her berth, feeling too miserable to mind about the submarine, feebly
wondered, while the steward tied her properly into her life-jacket, at
the cure effected in them. Anna-Rose seemed cured too, for she was
buttoning a coat round Anna-Felicitas's shoulders, and generally seemed
busy and brisk, ending by not even forgetting their precious little bag
of money and tickets and passports, and fastening it round her neck in
spite of the steward's assuring her that it would drag her down in the
water like a stone tied to a kitten.
"You're a _very_ cheerful man, aren't you," Anna-Rose said, as he pushed
them out of the cabin and along the corridor, holding up Anna-Felicitas
on her feet, who seemed quite unable to run alone.
The steward didn't answer, but caught hold of Anna-Felicitas at the foot
of the stairs and carried her up them, and then having got her on deck
propped her in a corner near the life-boat allotted to the set of cabins
they were in, and darted away and in a minute was back again with a big
coat which he wrapped round her.
"May as well be comfortable till you do begin to drown," he said
briskly, "but mind you don't forget to throw it off, Missie, the minute
you feel the water."
Anna-Felicitas slid down on to the deck, her head leaning against the
wall, her eyes shut, a picture of complete indifference to whatever
might be going to happen next. Her face was now as white as the frill of
the night-gown that straggled out from beneath her coat, for the journey
from the cabin to the deck had altogether finished her. Anna-Rose was
thankful that she felt too ill to be afraid. Her own heart was black
with despair,--despair that Anna-Felicitas, the dear and beautiful one,
should presently, at any moment, be thrown into that awful heaving
water, and certainly be hurt and frightened before she was choked out of
life.
She sat down beside her, getting as close as possible to keep her warm.
Her own twin. Her own beloved twin. She took her cold hands and put them
away beneath the coat the steward had brought. She slid an arm round her
and laid her cheek against her sleeve, so that she should know somebody
was there, somebody who loved her. "What's the _good_ of it all--_why_
were we born--" she wondered, staring at the hideous gray waves as
they swept up into sight over the side of the ship and away again as the
ship rose up, and at the wet deck and the torn sky, and the
miserable-looking passengers in their life-jackets collected together
round the life-boat.
Nobody said anything except the German ladies. They, indeed, kept up a
constant wail. The others were silent, the men mostly smoking
cigarettes, the women holding their fluttering wraps about them, all of
them staring out to sea, watching for the track of the torpedo to
appear. One shot had been fired already and had missed. The ship was
zig-zagging under every ounce of steam she could lay on. An official
stood by the life-boat, which was ready with water in it and provisions.
That the submarine must be mad, as the official remarked, to fire on an
American ship, didn't console anybody, and his further assurance that
the matter would not be allowed to rest there left them cold. They felt
too sure that in all probability they themselves were going to rest
there, down underneath that repulsive icy water, after a struggle that
was going to be unpleasant.
The man who had roused Anna-Rose's indignation as the ship left the
landing-stage by looking as though he were soon going to be sorry for
her, came across from the first class, where his life-boat was, to watch
for the track of the expected torpedo, and caught sight of the twins
huddled in their corner.
Anna-Rose didn't see him, for she was staring with wide eyes out at the
desolate welter of water and cloud, and thinking of home: the home that
was, that used to be till such a little while ago, the home that now
seemed to have been so amazingly, so unbelievably beautiful and blest,
with its daily life of love and laughter and of easy confidence that
to-morrow was going to be just as good. Happiness had been the ordinary
condition there, a simple matter of course. Its place was taken now by
courage. Anna-Rose felt sick at all this courage there was about. There
should be no occasion for it. There should be no horrors to face, no
cruelties to endure. Why couldn't brotherly love continue? Why must
people get killing each other? She, for her part, would be behind nobody
in courage and in the defying of a Fate that could behave, as she felt,
so very unlike her idea of anything even remotely decent; but it
oughtn't to be necessary, this constant condition of screwed-upness; it
was waste of effort, waste of time, waste of life,--oh the _stupidity_
of it all, she thought, rebellious and bewildered.
"Have some brandy," said the man, pouring out a little into a small cup.
Anna-Rose turned her eyes on him without moving the rest of her. She
recognized him. He was going to be sorry for them again. He had much
better be sorry for himself now, she thought, because he, just as much
as they were, was bound for a watery bier.
"Thank you," she said distantly, for not only did she hate the smell of
brandy but Aunt Alice had enjoined her with peculiar strictness on no
account to talk to strange men, "I don't drink."
"Then I'll give the other one some," said the man.
"She too," said Anna-Rose, not changing her position but keeping a
drearily watchful eye on him, "is a total abstainer."
"Well, I'll go and fetch some of your warm things for you. Tell me where
your cabin is. You haven't got enough on."
"Thank you," said Anna-Rose distantly, "we have quite enough on,
considering the occasion. We're dressed for drowning."
The man laughed, and said there would be no drowning, and that they had
a splendid captain, and were outdistancing the submarine hand over fist.
Anna-Rose didn't believe him, and suspected him of supposing her to be
in need of cheering, but a gleam of comfort did in spite of herself
steal into her heart.
He went away, and presently came back with a blanket and some pillows.
"If you _will_ sit on the floor," he said, stuffing the pillows behind
their backs, during which Anna-Felicitas didn't open her eyes, and her
head hung about so limply that it looked as if it might at any moment
roll off, "you may at least be as comfortable as you can."
Anna-Rose pointed out, while she helped him arrange Anna-Felicitas's
indifferent head on the pillow, that she saw little use in being
comfortable just a minute or two before drowning. "Drowning be hanged,"
said the man.
"That's how Uncle Arthur used to talk," said Anna-Rose, feeling suddenly
quite at home, "except that _he_ would have said 'Drowning be damned.'"
The man laughed. "Is he dead?" he asked, busy with Anna-Felicitas's
head, which defied their united efforts to make it hold itself up.
"Dead?" echoed Anna-Rose, to whom the idea of Uncle Arthur's ever being
anything so quiet as dead and not able to say any swear words for such a
long time as eternity seemed very odd.
"You said he _used_ to talk like that."
"Oh, no he's not dead at all. Quite the contrary."
The man laughed again, and having got Anna-Felicitas's head arranged in
a position that at least, as Anna-Rose pointed out, had some sort of
self-respect in it, he asked who they were with.
Anna-Rose looked at him with as much defiant independence as she could
manage to somebody who was putting a pillow behind her back. He was
going to be sorry for them. She saw it coming. He was going to say "You
poor things," or words to that effect. That's what the people round
Uncle Arthur's had said to them. That's what everybody had said to them
since the war began, and Aunt Alice's friends had said it to her too,
because she had to have her nieces live with her, and no doubt Uncle
Arthur's friends who played golf with him had said it to him as well,
except that probably they put in a damn so as to make it clearer for him
and said "You poor damned thing," or something like that, and she was
sick of the very words poor things. Poor things, indeed! "We're with
each other," she said briefly, lifting her chin.
"Well, I don't think that's enough," said the man. "Not half enough.
You ought to have a mother or something."
"_Everybody_ can't have mothers," said Anna-Rose very defiantly indeed,
tears rushing into her eyes.
The man tucked the blanket round their resistless legs. "There now," he
said. "That's better. What's the good of catching your deaths?"
Anna-Rose, glad that he hadn't gone on about mothers, said that with
so much death imminent, catching any of it no longer seemed to her
particularly to matter, and the man laughed and pulled over a chair
and sat down beside her.
She didn't know what he saw anywhere in that dreadful situation to laugh
at, but just the sound of a laugh was extraordinarily comforting. It
made one feel quite different. Wholesome again. Like waking up to
sunshine and one's morning bath and breakfast after a nightmare. He
seemed altogether a very comforting man. She liked him to sit near them.
She hoped he was a good man. Aunt Alice had said there were very few
good men, hardly any in fact except one's husband, but this one did seem
one of the few exceptions. And she thought that by now, he having
brought them all those pillows, he could no longer come under the
heading of strange men. When he wasn't looking she put out her hand
secretly and touched his coat where he wouldn't feel it. It comforted
her to touch his coat. She hoped Aunt Alice wouldn't have disapproved of
seeing her sitting side by side with him and liking it.
Aunt Alice had been, as her custom was, vague, when Anna-Rose, having
given her the desired promise not to talk or let Anna-Felicitas talk to
strange men, and desiring to collect any available information for her
guidance in her new responsible position had asked, "But when are men
_not_ strange?"
"When you've married them," said Aunt Alice. "After that, of course, you
love them."
And she sighed heavily, for it was bed-time.